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Comment Re:Debian (Score 1) 51

How would i do this with Debian Stable? The latest KDE (or near enough latest) isn't in backports and i can't find any repos (that don't constantly break or have missing dependencies) that have it.

I ended up moving towards Debian Testing (which is fine) but i'm interested in how you would do it.

Comment Re:Good riddance Gnome (and KDE) (Score 4, Informative) 134

You're right about GNOME. Those guys won't be happy until they've reduced the Desktop to a single close button and a window.

I think you're being too harsh on KDE though. The usual KDE criticism is that they have too many advanced options. On my machine, KDE (and all it's related processes) are consuming about 90MB of RAM (even with some bling turned on), to compare Chromium is consuming about 400MB.

KDE4 has a unfair reputation for being wasteful. I think the stigma is mainly caused by Anakondi's initial one-time file indexing processes being heavy. People tend to switch to something else before it finishes and leave with bad impressions.

Comment x1000 Markup? (Score 1) 1

Ray-Ban sells $0.20 worth of molded plastic for $200.00. How much more expensive is this going to make things? Luxottica doesn't do small margins...

A side note, Ray-Ban owe their current existence to Tom Cruise and Top Gun (not to mention stupid people). They were super close to bankruptcy, then the film came out...

Comment Be More Critical (Score 1) 250

We're basing the idea that the multimeter was confiscated for being yellow from what was said in a sparkfun blog post. They have an incentive to down play the violation.

Indeed, If you look at the actual USPTO filing it is clearly stated that "Color is not claimed as a feature of the mark."

I've purchased some cheap multimeters that look a lot like flukes (The way the yellow cover is shaped, the font,spacing on the dial and the curves of the plastic).

Comment Use Win7 (Score 1) 287

Windows 7 is going to be less problematic transistion than a Debian based distro+KDE.

Xp to win7 is a lot more familiar that xp to KDE. If all she uses is a basic desktop, you can install a third party menu and the major difference with be a thicker taskbar. You can even set win7 to never combine taskbar apps and it'll be further like xp. With win7, other people can troubleshoot her problems.

Don't mix her with your ideological battles.

Comment Canonical - A Failed Company? (Score 2) 141

Only a year of two until Canonical shuts down then. They're not making any money, They're unlikely to make any money and generally people don't want an Ubuntu based anything.

Their server support business is lacklustre (Redhat, Novell, IBM and Oracle eat their lunch) and not enough to support a business.

It's hard to call Canonical a successful company - it's only still around because of its unique financial status.

The hardware Ubuntu phone OS needs is not low end. They might have had a chance with low-end phones, but the OS is too heavy and doesn't offer enough compelling reasons to use it. With so much abstraction, it's sure to be buggy as well.

Like Ubuntu TV, Edge, Unity and Mir this is going nowhere. Their hardware "partner" will load a few hundred phones with Ubuntu, they'll also sell Android Phones with the exact same hardware. It doesn't cost them anything, if they don't sell - the manufacturer will just reflash them.

Submission + - If we Buck Feta and leave, where should we go? 17

Covalent writes: I am a long-time slashdot reader (don't let the UID fool you), and I agree with most of you that the Beta is a disaster. Dice has promised a fix, but what if this garbage is the new reality? Is there a suitable alternative to slashdot that members would find equally (or more) fulfilling? Is someone going to fork slashdot and start it anew (Taco can you hear me?) Or is this just the end of an era?

Comment Intentionally Bad Commenting System? (Score 1) 237

>The colour scheme hurts my eyes - it's too shiny.

>The condensed comments are gone.

>So much waster space, the padding on everything is too big, margins are uselessly large. As the user scrolls down, the comment boxes get to ridiculously small proportions.

> There is no reply button. Are you trying to reduce discussion?

If you're trying to underemphasis the comments (the only worthwhile thing here) you're going to have to do better editorial work. Hacker News posts articles weeks before you do.

Comment Teach It With Math (Score 1) 387

When teaching algebra, include a coding unit that shows the relationship between the two. This should cover the flow controls and functions. Teach first order logic as well. It will make sharpen their analytic skills and make them better citizens.

Who's going to teach it though? Over the years the teaching profession has been eroded to mediocrity, with low entry standards and BS union ideological wars

Comment Everyone Hates The New UIs (Score 3, Insightful) 503

For the most part i spend my time in browser, terminal, pdf reader, word processor and occasionally a dedicated IDE.

All i really want in a UI is the ability to switch between these apps without having to mentally switch contexts. On a non-touch computer, a menu list of installed apps+taskbar with a stacking window manager is ideal.

Linux users are not the only ones who are rejecting the new UIs. Everyone hates how windows 8 works.

There is clearly a need for new UIs for touch based machines. The mistake is trying to create one UI that works for both worlds - this is the mistake Win8 and GNOME3 made.

Comment MS Should Take Chromium, Call it IE. (Score 1) 390

IE is shit, It also makes them no money and offers little advantage. It was considered necessary in the 90's to counter a possible threat to the desktop (mainly java and Netscape).

By making their browser free they killed netscape and limited the browser as a platform for their competitors. It also removed any incentive MS had to innovate in the area.

It took Mozilla, a very odd organisation, a NFP organisation based around software that uses Open-Source as a way to reduce the limitations that traditional software houses encounter (I.E. making money) to break the stagnation.

The world has moved on, ways to compete with free have emerged and the desktop market has cemented, mobile platforms are a big stake and MS has a very minor piece of it.

MS should take chromium, add their own stuff (MS accounts, Bing, Outlook.com and other "value added" stuff) and ship it with windows. It works for Google. it would likely slow (perhaps stop) the migration to chrome .

Come to think of it, they should do the same thing with android too.

Comment Anna Karenina (Score 1) 796

Anna Karenina is easily the best book I've read. It's fairly dense though. The book is the epitome of realist fiction (basically the characters sweat if it's hot) and on each reading you get something different from it.

Tolstoy was an interesting and thoughtful man and wrote a lot of good stuff.

Also, on a side note, don't read if you don't enjoy it. There's nothing particularly beneficial about reading. Historically literacy was a sign of education and the association has remained. Reading is a very slow activity and requires full attention - If you can extract a story or info from another (more forgiving) medium, why not?

Comment This Is The Most They'll Every Do (Score 2) 415

The reason they can't just drop the charges and offer regret is mainly political.

Turing was in violation of the law at the time. The law was definitely unjust, but he was in violation of it.

Dropping the charges or showing remorse would open up a can of worms regarding liability. Doing so would create precedent and a mechanism for descendants to air grievances over historical wrong doings - it will never end and may be costly.

Practically, this is the best they will ever dare do.

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